Edited as I was vague about what I needed. Hello been looking at wireless cards but then found a video about powerline adapter what would be best for desktop gaming? I've been told you can't use a multi plug for powerline so I would need to use a plug on the other side of the room. Would this matter and are powerline better? I've found one for £22 that claim 600mps would that fast enough for gaming? The wireless I was looking at was the t6e ac 1300 is this a good card? Reviews seem mixed. Thanks for your help guys Ps this is for desktop
An intel wireless card, something like the AC 3260. Intel AC cards have less BS stuff in their firmware and drivers. Some of the more expensive ASUS ones are supposed to be great, but they use a lot of gimmicky stuff that may or may not be snakeoil, especially aimed at gamers.
I have three powerline plugs with two in multi sockets and there is no problem with connections on any of them. My router plug is direct into the wall, with my TV box and PC connected through multi socket boards (one even has anti-surge filtering). The system is TP Link 600mbs, simple to connect and no need to faff about with setting up keys. I can't say about response times compared with wireless (stuck on a slow PC until I find time to get my box of bits running) but it's been reliable with no drop outs - my old PC used to get the occasional drop out on Netgear wireless which needed me to unplug and re-insert the adaptor.
You can get powerline adaptors that pass through the electric plug they are connected to, so you could plug the powerline adaptor into the wall and then the multiplug into the adaptor. They are bulkier and a little more expensive. Personally I think powerline connections are better for gaming. With wireless cards in the past I have had issues with lag and, based on netgraphs in TF2, what seem to be frequent but very short connection losses. These wouldn't be noticeable in day to day internet use, but when gaming it's very clear when you lose connection briefly. When I got a powerline adaptor these issues disappeared. But, to be fair, I never bought more than the basic wireless equipment and it depends on your situation. Games over wireless were always playable until I moved to my latest house, and powerline adaptors may have issues on some electric networks.
I have 4 powerline adaptors, 1 sender and 3 receivers, 2 of the receivers emit a WiFi spot too (perfect for the garage in the back garden). I found using them on power cords to be problematic and since switched to using them direct on the wall sockets and were perfect now. If you can, why not 'wire in' a small hub/switch from your main router. I did this upstairs for my lads bedroom and playroom: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008PC1FYK/ The one above is small and compact, not wall mountable but a couple of screws and 10 mins it can be I simply placed that in his bedroom and made up a network cable from my gigabit switch downstairs to this (a big old drill bit later and some swearing trying to poke cables through the ceiling) it was all wired up. The other option is to go with a 5G Wireless dongle, the speeds you can get with a decent SSD and 5G is amazing, think my Surface Pro 3 was pulling films from my NAS at about 50MBPS!
I use a cheap wireless USB stick from pc world for gaming delivers my max connection speed on steam and I have 8ms in league of legends. About 5-6 meters from the box the way it's arranged with a wall between. I paid under £10 as a stop gap and have just continued using it.
